Sing it at Midnight!

Soon enough, you and I will die. Nobody gets out of life alive. Everything’s impermanent. The only constant is change (and plastic). But if we can live for others, and die having left our room clean and our country more enlightened, then we can get some satisfaction. We can die happily—in the same way that we celebrate the end of each year with friends and loved ones.

We only enjoy approximately 70—or fewer—New Year’s Eves. So, this year, let’s remember to raise our glass to the things that keep us sane and genuine. I’ll raise mine to 5 minutes of meditation each morning, and my weekly yoga class, to going vegan, to climbing, to Nature, my bicycle, my mom, my teachers, my mutt, my good friends, lovers and my loneliness. Let’s raise our glass to community—to everything that makes life not merely easier or more convenient but worth slowing down for.

And here’s to you. It’s been a good year for elephant—we’ve more than tripled in size (again: from 100,000 unique monthly readers according to Google Analytics, to 314,000 last year; to 890,000 this year). We won...